I’m gonna knock on your door…

Do you know that record, the one that goes: “I'm gonna knock on your door, ring on your bell, Tap on your window too”?* Yep? Well, I want to tell you how I feel about it. It’s not actually that it ever made it onto my top ten list of records (not quite my era or taste), but I really didn’t have that many feelings about it until recently and as a result of recent events I have now decided that I hate it! I know, I know, these are strong words, but they have to be said. Do you want to know why I hate it? No? Well, I’m gonna tell you….

Early one morning when I was recovering from surgery (if you don’t know about that, why on earth are you reading this blog?) the doorbell rang. It was early enough that I was still in bed (no, not 10 o’clock it was 7.30 and stop interrupting!). I thought it must be a parcel delivery – I have no idea why, but the Post Office always does this to us – we get parcels really frakking early ** but they can’t get the regular post to us until lunchtime, but I digress (again hee hee!). Funny thing was that hubby leaves for work around that time so I was surprised that he and postie hadn’t bumped into each other on the front path. Anyway, I lay there and thought that there was no way I was going to try and run down the stairs with my crutches, just to get a parcel – they’d simply have to shove a card through the door and hubby could pick it up later. What happened next was odd – you see the parcel man usually rings the bell once, then he rings it again, then he bangs on the door and shouts “coo-ee” through the letterbox (well all but the last bit) – and is guaranteed to look all impatient when he has done all of that in the space of 30 seconds and you get to the door puffed out in your dressing gown with all your hair stood on end (a la Cherie Blair collecting her flowers the morning after the election). So… the doorbell rang, and then there was silence – no more ringing, no banging, no coo-ees. It was an odd enough situation that I hauled my fat a*se out of bed and went to the room at the front of the house overlooking the street. Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice would say, our car was outside. I decided since I was halfway there, I might as well limp my way down the stairs and open the front door – this I did, just to discover that the doorbell had rung because a member of our household had forgotten their keys! They collected them and that (as they say) was that.

You may be wondering what on earth all this has to do with hating records – well, I’m getting to that bit (although aficionados of the song may already know what’s coming). I crutched my way, slowly (and painfully ) back up the stairs and got back into my nice warm bed to relax a bit and listen to the radio. They were playing a song that was not on my top ten list (I will leave you to guess what it is) – I drowsily settled down and then I heard the doorbell again. “Oh &*$%”, I thought, “what now?” I heaved my bulk back out of bed and went back to the room at the front of the house and peered out. What did I see? Well, nothing – the street was completely empty – no car, no postie van. Odd I thought, maybe I dropped off for a second and dreamed it. I headed back into the bedroom and then I heard the bell again! By this stage I was having visions of faulty doorbells going off every few seconds through the day and wondered if I would have to call Señor Ding-Dong. It was then that I realised – it was that frakking** record. Every few seconds in the backing track someone rings our doorbell (or at least an identical one….).

So, now you know….

* I believe (after having Googled it) that the original was by Mark Clausing and if you are desperately interested you can find out more details including full lyrics (good grief!) here: http://www.ceder.net/recorddb/viewsingle.php4?RecordId=2990
**Do you watch BSG too?